Fiji Cube 38 Gallon Peninsula

[mckee1024]

I’ve been reading these forums and soaking up information since I started reefing three years ago. Now that I'm no longer a complete novice I figured I’d share my current setup.

Tank: Fiji Cube 38 Gallon Peninsula
2x AI Prime 16 HD, 2x 24 inch Reef Brite strip
Jebao SLW-10, Tunze Nanostream 6015
IM Mightyjet mini (266gph)
filter floss, chemi-pure, no skimmer
ATO: Tunze
Dosing: All for Reef, Neo-nitrate

I wanted to keep a simple, sleek looking aquarium so I went with minimal live rock and went with the two island scape. The plan right now is to cover the rock on the right in sps and have the rock on the left more mixed.
I decided to dose All for Reef because there’s practically no bad reviews and so far it’s been doing well for me.
I recently switched from Instant Ocean salt to Red Sea blue bucket because IO was raising my alkalinity to almost 12 and I want it to be 8-9.
Besides testing Alk, the only other thing I really test for is nitrate. I bought the Hanna checker about a month ago and my readings have been 0.0. This is probably what caused my cyano bloom. I talked to a local reefer and he recommended I stop doing water changes (I do 15% biweekly). To me water changes have always been the golden rule so I’m meeting him halfway and only gonna do water changes once a month.
Other than that I’m loving the way my plan is coming along and I’m really happy with the tank so far. Hope you enjoy it too!

 

[Hooz]

From experience, I do water changes when needed. With some tanks that is more frequently than others, but weekly nitrate/phosphate testing lets me know when I need one. I used to do weekly changes religiously, but one tank in particular gave me all sorts of problems (cyano especially) due to low nutrients, so I adopted the new philosophy.

Since you're dosing AFR (which includes trace elements and has a small carbon dosing effect), water changes are potentially even LESS important. I've been keeping saltwater tanks off and on since the early 90's, and it was hard for me to break the water change mindset. But, my tanks have never looked better!

 

[mckee1024]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm going to monitor my nitrates as I move toward monthly water changes, but if they're still low then I'll spread them out even further. Or like you said, do them on an as-needed basis.

 

[V A R I A N T]

How’s your tank doing?

 

[mckee1024]

How’s your tank doing?

On a large scale very good. On a smaller scale I’m still having nitrate issues and small bouts of cyano. I haven’t done a water change in 2 months and my nitrates are still 0.0. I’m seeing coral growth all around but it’s painfully slow. I think I’m going to start using neo nitro to bring them up but I’m hesitant because I don’t fully understand how to use it yet.

 

[V A R I A N T]

Nitrate dosing isn’t difficult. Essentially you use a calculator and set your current and desired values, water volume, and divide the result by the number of days you want to achieve that result. If you’re measuring zero now, you could start small, say like 3ml per day, and test your water to see the result. You will also want to measure phosphate at the same time due to the relationship of N03 to P04. Slower is better, like anything else in this hobby.

 

[mckee1024]

Nitrate dosing isn’t difficult. Essentially you use a calculator and set your current and desired values, water volume, and divide the result by the number of days you want to achieve that result. If you’re measuring zero now, you could start small, say like 3ml per day, and test your water to see the result. You will also want to measure phosphate at the same time due to the relationship of N03 to P04. Slower is better, like anything else in this hobby.

I don’t have a Hanna P04 checker yet and I don’t like the other test kits so I’m flying blind when it comes to P04. Is it a must have if you’re going to dose neo nitro? I would plan on doing it slowly of course.
Another one of my concerns with dosing nitrate is knowing when to stop dosing it. Will I be able to stop once I hit my desired target range and it will stay at that level, or will my skimmer eventually bring it back down? I’m worried about running into a problem where it’s constantly fluctuating.

 

[V A R I A N T]

Like all other parameters, get used to them fluctuating Focus on maintaining ranges, like 5-10ppm Nitrate, 0.05-0.10ppm Phosphate, etc.

Nitrate will be offset by Phosphate in the form of positive bacteria. Nitrate will be reduced by your skimmer, and water changes. Both of which are considered nutrient export methods. How fast will this happen? Time will tell, each tank is different.

You can stop dosing Nitrate at any time, measure, and dose again if you see numbers dropping.

 

[mckee1024]

Like all other parameters, get used to them fluctuating Focus on maintaining ranges, like 5-10ppm Nitrate, 0.05-0.10ppm Phosphate, etc.

Nitrate will be offset by Phosphate in the form of positive bacteria. Nitrate will be reduced by your skimmer, and water changes. Both of which are considered nutrient export methods. How fast will this happen? Time will tell, each tank is different.

You can stop dosing Nitrate at any time, measure, and dose again if you see numbers dropping.

Thanks for the advice. I am going to start dosing it next week. Based off what I read I'll be happy with anywhere in the 2-20ppm range.

 

[martyharrison]

Beautiful setup! Any updates on your nitrate/cyano?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank looks really good!!

 

[mckee1024]

Thanks! I started dosing neo nitro so now my nitrates are consistently 5-15.
I did a chemiclean treatment for the cyano. It got rid of the cyano but I came out with dinos…so now I’m dealing with that. For the Dino’s I added algae barn copepods and started feeding phyto 3 days ago. I’m hoping the pods eat up the Dino’s and then I can siphon the rest out. I might do a two day blackout later this week to finish them off.

 

[Karl Sanders]

Have you tried PNS Pro Bio from Algae barn? Balance everything out for me and cleared up algae issues. Beautiful tank and setup. I am considering it for my upgrade. How does the quality compare to the competition? I've never seen a Fiji cube in person.

 

[mckee1024]

@Karl Sanders thanks! I really like the fiji cube. It's an upgrade from my fluval 13.5. I'm a big fan of the peninsula nanos and the fiji cube was the only one in my size range.
And I haven't heard of that product but I'll do some research into it. At this point I'll try anything to get rid of these dino's. I fought it back a good amount by siphoning, then three day blackout, and dosing microbacter7. But after about a week it started to creep back in again. During the blackout I accidentally let the temp go up to 84 and it bleached my millepora frag and bottlebrush coral. I'm also losing my frogspawn and hammer corals which sucks.

On the bright side I just got a frag of Red dragon acro and firework clove polyps from TSA. They look great and are acclimating well on the sand bed. I also added two 30 inch reef brite lumilites that sit on top of the lid for better coverage.

Going forward I plan on re-doing my fish stocking list. The clown and dottyback are too aggressive to let a 5th fish in the tank so I'm going to remove them and replace them with a pistol shrimp/goby pair, firefish, bicolor blenny, and green chromis. They're my oldest fish but they're an evil duo so I'm done with them.

 

[mckee1024]

Some recent pics.

 

[mckee1024]

Frags from Top Shelf Aquatics

 

[mckee1024]

The war against dinos has been won! I finally decided to buck up and get the Aqua UV 15w HOB. Within two weeks of running the UV and doing daily siphoning, the dinos cleared up almost entirely. It has been ten days since the last siphon and dinos are 95% gone. I will probably run it for a little longer and do a few more siphons before I take it off and keep it on standby. I am really impressed with this UV. It was a huge upgrade from the crappy little IM desktop UV. The only downside I had heard about this UV was the noise from the return nozzle, but fortunately my plan for this worked. I just cut the end of a balloon and slid it over the return nozzle and secured it with a rubber band. Basically adding a two inch hose. After this it was dead silent.
Since my last post I have also redone my fish list. I got rid of the clown and dottyback and added a royal gramma, tailspot blenny, and firefish. I plan on getting a chromis, shrimp goby, and maybe a blue flasher wrasse if I can find one.
I recently went to RAP NYC, which was my first big show and it was awesome. I got a PC rainbow and millepora frag from Tusi Coral, a brain coral and trumpet coral from Jason Fox and a few others. Admittedly it was pretty stupid to buy these frags before my dino issue cleared, but luckily my gamble payed off. All the frags seem to be doing really well and the PC rainbow is coloring up really nicely. I think I am finally coming to a turning point in my tank where the tank starting to mature and able to grow SPS. I am still dosing neo-nitro and my nutrient levels have been around 5-10ppm, which is where I want them. My Alk has also been very stable being 8-9 ppm. The plan is to get back on a biweekly water change schedule because I think the corals definitely do better when I do them. I also ran an ICP test that they gave out at RAP and my magnesium levels are a little low at 1282, which I think could be causing some coloring issues. Other than tinkering with that I'm hoping the tank goes on cruise control and starts to thrive.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

The war against dinos has been won! I finally decided to buck up and get the Aqua UV 15w HOB. Within two weeks of running the UV and doing daily siphoning, the dinos cleared up almost entirely. It has been ten days since the last siphon and dinos are 95% gone. I will probably run it for a little longer and do a few more siphons before I take it off and keep it on standby. I am really impressed with this UV. It was a huge upgrade from the crappy little IM desktop UV. The only downside I had heard about this UV was the noise from the return nozzle, but fortunately my plan for this worked. I just cut the end of a balloon and slid it over the return nozzle and secured it with a rubber band. Basically adding a two inch hose. After this it was dead silent.
Since my last post I have also redone my fish list. I got rid of the clown and dottyback and added a royal gramma, tailspot blenny, and firefish. I plan on getting a chromis, shrimp goby, and maybe a blue flasher wrasse if I can find one.
I recently went to RAP NYC, which was my first big show and it was awesome. I got a PC rainbow and millepora frag from Tusi Coral, a brain coral and trumpet coral from Jason Fox and a few others. Admittedly it was pretty stupid to buy these frags before my dino issue cleared, but luckily my gamble payed off. All the frags seem to be doing really well and the PC rainbow is coloring up really nicely. I think I am finally coming to a turning point in my tank where the tank starting to mature and able to grow SPS. I am still dosing neo-nitro and my nutrient levels have been around 5-10ppm, which is where I want them. My Alk has also been very stable being 8-9 ppm. The plan is to get back on a biweekly water change schedule because I think the corals definitely do better when I do them. I also ran an ICP test that they gave out at RAP and my magnesium levels are a little low at 1282, which I think could be causing some coloring issues. Other than tinkering with that I'm hoping the tank goes on cruise control and starts to thrive.

Tank looks like it is doing great!

 

[Eradliff]

I’ve been reading these forums and soaking up information since I started reefing three years ago. Now that I'm no longer a complete novice I figured I’d share my current setup.

Tank: Fiji Cube 38 Gallon Peninsula
2x AI Prime 16 HD, 1x 18 inch Reef Brite strip
Jebao SLW-10, Tunze Nanostream 6015
Sicce syncra 1.0
filter floss, chemi-pure, Tunze skimmer 9004
ATO: Tunze
Dosing: All for Reef

I wanted to keep a simple, sleek looking aquarium so I went with minimal live rock and went with the two island scape. The plan right now is to cover the rock on the right in sps and have the rock on the left more mixed.
I decided to dose All for Reef because there’s practically no bad reviews and so far it’s been doing well for me.
I recently switched from Instant Ocean salt to Red Sea blue bucket because IO was raising my alkalinity to almost 12 and I want it to be 8-9.
Besides testing Alk, the only other thing I really test for is nitrate. I bought the Hanna checker about a month ago and my readings have been 0.0. This is probably what caused my cyano bloom. I talked to a local reefer and he recommended I stop doing water changes (I do 15% biweekly). To me water changes have always been the golden rule so I’m meeting him halfway and only gonna do water changes once a month.
Other than that I’m loving the way my plan is coming along and I’m really happy with the tank so far. Hope you enjoy it too!

What do you have the tank sitting on? i’m looking into this tank but don’t want to buy the 1k stand

 

[Javiv3]

What do you have the tank sitting on? i’m looking into this tank but don’t want to buy the 1k stand

Looks like he has it on a dresser or something, I am interested on this same tank and will be doing the same.